Chapter 93: That Time I Reorganized the Bureaucracy in South America (3)

TL: Skye

Bruno Alves's appointment as head of the Homeland Security Agency sent shockwaves through the whole of Publica Street, where the government ministries of San Marcos were clustered together.

"You're telling me Bruno Alves, the former deputy director who got hauled off to Tortilla Farm, is the new head of the Homeland Security Agency?"

"Word is His Excellency handpicked him personally."

"That's insane."

Shock and terror spread through the ranks of the civil servants in equal measure.

The shock was that a man who'd flunked his Competency Evaluation with a failing score and gotten dragged off to Tortilla Farm had just become the head of an intelligence agency.

The terror was that even after falling out of His Excellency's favor, one could earn another chance so long as one demonstrated loyalty and competence, and yet...

'Which, flipped around, means fall out of His Excellency's favor and you could get shipped off to the farm at any moment?!'

Naturally, the civil servants shaped up in a hurry.

Meanwhile, on the top floor of the five-story building assigned to the Homeland Security Agency as its offices.

Bruno had been tearing his hair out ever since the moment of his appointment.

"...I've got no people."

The grandiose name "Homeland Security Agency" had been slapped on it, but the reality was grim.

'They say getting started is half the battle... except I can't even get started.'

Yu-jin had told him to coordinate with the various ministries and recruit personnel freely, but with the new agency already drawing wary looks from all sides, not a single ministry was willing to hand over its people without a fight.

How did he know?

Because he'd already tried, that's how.

On his very first day in office he'd gone to the SIA to sound them out about seconding a few personnel, and he'd already been turned down flat.

"We're short-staffed ourselves, so I'm afraid we won't be able to help you."

And that refusal came even after this.

"Director, I need at least one experienced hand if I'm to build an organization at all, don't I? I'm begging you, please."

"That would be for the Agency head to figure out on his own, wouldn't it?"

He'd clung to the man's pant leg and begged, and still he'd struck out.

In truth, it was only to be expected.

Now that there were two organizations doing the same intelligence work, from the SIA's point of view someone had just come along to steal food off their plate, so they had no reason whatsoever to roll up their sleeves and help.

And what's more, the SIA's staffing shortage wasn't a lie.

Realizing as much, Bruno had changed tack and tried to poach personnel from the military instead, but.

"Sorry, my friend. I put out a call for volunteers to transfer to the Agency, but it turns out nobody wants to take off the uniform."

Nobody was about to quit the stable job that was the military to sign on with an Agency that might well go belly-up.

In the end, Bruno had no choice but to come back empty-handed.

And so, as he sat before his empty desk staring up at the ceiling.

'Maybe I should've just stayed in the cornfield spreading manure... wait!'

A thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

'Tortilla Farm.'

The faces of the people he'd worked alongside there went flashing past.

Ex-soldiers, ex-civil servants, ex-cops, even ex-gang members.

They'd been corrupt and incompetent, but some of them had become different people over a year or two on the Farm.

And a few of them had stood out from the rest in particular.

"Now, those guys..."

Bruno's eyes gleamed.

And three days later, in the office at the Presidential Palace.

Standing before Yu-jin, Bruno held out a document.

"This is my proposed initial staffing plan for the Homeland Security Agency."

Yu-jin skimmed the document, then his eyes went round.

"These people... they're all from Tortilla Farm, aren't they?"

"That's correct."

Bruno explained, crisp and precise.

"Since it proved difficult to draw experienced personnel from the established organizations, I selected from among people I know personally. These are individuals whose character and ability I verified firsthand while working alongside them at the Farm."

"Teaching them the work and getting them up to speed won't be easy, though, will it?"

"These are talented people who worked with a smile even on a farm in the dead of summer, in blistering heat topping forty degrees Celsius. I have every confidence they can overcome whatever adversity comes their way. Above all, their experience runs deep enough that developing their job skills won't take long."

"Is that so?"

Yu-jin looked over the résumés one by one.

A former team leader from the Interior Ministry's intelligence division, a former investigator from the military police corps, a former detective from the police investigative division.

Every last one of them had been hauled off to the Farm with a failing score and put through the Rehabilitation Program.

Yu-jin flipped to the back page, checked the evaluation column, and interest sparked in his eyes.

"Oho?"

"These are the men who worked hardest alongside me at the Farm and changed the most. Above all, they've hit rock bottom once already, so their resolve never to slip up again is ironclad."

Bruno's gaze was steeped in conviction.

"I came to understand it myself at the Farm. A man who's fallen once is the most desperate. And a desperate man is the strongest."

He had a point.

They might not pass for elites, but it seemed their shortfalls in ability could be covered by sheer willpower.

Yu-jin set the document down and nodded.

"Very well. Build yourself a good team."

"Thank you, sir!"

Watching Bruno snap off a salute and leave, Yu-jin smiled contentedly.

'To think that men rehabilitated in the bosom of Mother Nature would become pillars guarding the nation.'

Yu-jin was purely, genuinely moved.

He'd assumed Tortilla Farm only churned out agricultural produce, and here it was cultivating talent as well.

'Mother Nature really does have the power to heal a person.'

Isabella, watching Yu-jin from the side, was marveling inwardly, and for entirely different reasons.

'Failing them on the Competency Evaluation, sending them to the Farm, rehabilitating them there... was every bit of it a stepping stone laid down for this exact moment?'

When she'd first proposed the Competency Evaluation, she'd assumed it was simply a means of weeding out incompetent civil servants.

But now she saw it was nothing of the sort.

'He wasn't discarding the incompetent... he was manufacturing loyal subordinates. Ahh...'

Because those who'd been cast down into the abyss, once lifted back to their feet, couldn't help but come to feel an absolute loyalty.

Above all, the organization Bruno had just assembled was no ordinary government ministry.

A third intelligence agency, loyal to His Excellency and His Excellency alone.

And if the people staffing it gave His Excellency their unconditional loyalty?

Then a loyalty rivalry with the SIA would naturally, inevitably follow.

Isabella felt a shiver run down her spine at the realization.

'This man... he is truly terrifying.'

Of course, Yu-jin was merely smiling out of pure, honest pride in Bruno, but the others didn't see it that way.

"Chief, Tortilla Farm really does seem like a wonderful place."

"Y-yes, I suppose it does."

Looking at Yu-jin's innocent, beaming face, Isabella felt her legs go weak for a moment.

*

There was yet another matter of state more urgent than the Homeland Security Agency.

Police reform.

In fact, this was part of the very reason Yu-jin had set about restructuring in the first place, which in a sense made it the more pressing task of the two.

What's more, this one was the harder of the two.

Because...

"We'll have to start all over again from training."

Because the organization that was the police had to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

"...And how would you like the training carried out?"

Yu-jin answered Pedro's question slowly.

"I think the best approach is to split them into groups, send every last one of them back for retraining, and teach them from scratch."

"If you'll tell me what sort of training you have in mind, I'll carry it out exactly as you say."

"Clear out a military base for me on the outskirts of Libertad."

"A military base, as in...?"

"Yes. Let's train them military-style, the whole nine yards. So we can root out that rotten mindset once and for all."

And so, by Yu-jin's order, San Marcos's first-ever police training institution, the Libertad Police Academy, was established.

"You are not soldiers! You are police officers, the first to answer when a citizen is in trouble!"

"Sir!"

The instructor's booming shout and the trainees' response rang out across the parade ground.

"Police academy" sounded nice enough, but in reality it was no different from special-forces hell training.

A daily routine that began with a 6 a.m. wake-up and a ten-kilometer run.

Endless physical conditioning and close-order drill, all introduced under the banner of fixing their rotten state of mind.

But the true hell was the public-service training.

"Smile! Why are you glaring at the citizen?! I said smile so I can see eight teeth!"

"H-heh, heheh...!"

Fresh out of a crawl through the mud pit, lungs burning and mouths tasting of copper, they still had to plaster on a smile and offer a greeting the instant the instructor blew his whistle, no exceptions.

And on top of that.

"Good day to you! How may I help you!"

They had to master greetings not only in their mother tongue but in Korean and English as well.

And if they botched it?

"What in God's name is wrong with your pronunciation?! One hundred squat jumps, then back to practice! Understood?!"

"Sir!"

What could they do but take the disciplinary drilling?

The corrupt cops who, in the old days, would let a criminal walk for a single hundred-dollar bill were left utterly flabbergasted by this hell of enforced courtesy.

Muttering that they'd sooner be in a shootout with a cartel, more and more of them took to secretly wiping away tears every night.

"I can't take any more of this. I'd rather just hand in my resignation..."

"Shut your mouth, you idiot. You think they'd actually accept it if you quit? You'd be off to the cornfields, a hundred percent. You want to spend the rest of your life shucking corn?!"

"Eep...!"

And so twelve weeks of hell training, soaked in blood, sweat, and forced smiles, came to an end.

*

Graduation day for the Libertad Police Academy's inaugural class.

On the parade ground, fifteen hundred newly minted police officers stood in crisp, neatly pressed sky-blue uniforms, aligned in perfect rank and file.

There was but one reason they stood waiting like this.

"His Excellency is entering! Compaaany... atten-TION!"

Because Yu-jin had come in person to mark the occasion of their graduation.

Gulp.

A tense moment.

Yu-jin walked up onto the podium.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned toward him as one.

The great leader who had shoved them into this hellfire.

Standing at the microphone, Yu-jin wore a contented smile as he looked down over the parade ground.

Their deeply tanned faces and sharply squared postures were simply splendid.

"My dear police officers of San Marcos."

Yu-jin's gentle voice carried out through the speakers.

"Seeing you all reborn fills me with such pride. You, who have endured these past twelve weeks of grueling training, are the true pillars who will lead a new San Marcos."

Just as the trainees' hearts began to swell a little, he went on, that mild smile still fixed in place.

"I know. Some of you still long for the temptations of your past. The sweetness of a bribe, the thrill of wielding power... You are human, and so you may err, and you may sink back into incompetence once again."

A chill silence settled over the parade ground.

Yu-jin's voice was boundlessly warm, yet cold sweat trickled down the spines of everyone listening.

"But do not worry."

Yu-jin clenched his fist and cried out in a voice full of conviction.

"I will never, ever give up on you!"

"......!"

"Should you turn corrupt again? Grow incompetent? That's quite all right. I will not cast you out. Twice, three times, no, even ten times over! I will call you back to this training camp and teach you all over again, from the very beginning!"

At Yu-jin's declaration, the trainees' pupils quaked as though an earthquake had struck.

'He'd call us... back to this hell?'

'Even ten times over?'

'Isn't that just a fancy way of saying he'll work us like slaves for the rest of our lives?'

'His Excellency has no intention of ever accepting our resignations...!'

Whether they thought so or not, Yu-jin barreled ahead with exactly what he wanted to say.

"Until you and the people become one in heart and mind! I will walk alongside you to the very end. This is my promise to you!"

At the close of this stirring, masterful speech, Yu-jin threw his arms wide.

Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap!

And sure enough, the sound of applause filled the parade ground.

But he had no idea.

That the officers applauding below the podium were trembling from head to toe.

Only a single thought circled through their minds.

'We've become slaves for life...'

Mistaking their terror-stricken eyes for tears of emotion, Yu-jin nodded in satisfaction.

"Now, go forth to the citizens just as you've been taught. I believe in you all!"

"Aaaaargh!"

Fifteen hundred police officers, trembling with dread, let out a scream.

*****

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